Friday 27 August 2021

Fine Vintage

 "Notice

  1. The amount of artillery systems held at warehouse #727 that are fully equipped (sans breech blocks) is as follows:
    1. 107 mm model 1877: 32 units or 8 batteries
    2. 152 mm 2 tonners: 68 units or 17 batteries
    3. 120 mm French guns: 12 units or 3 batteries
      Other systems including 127 and 152 mm British guns and 2-pood guns cannot be used as there are no shells or sights for them.
  2. All Russian systems (100 guns) have no breech blocks. They have to be urgently manufactured at one of Moscow's factories.
  3. All aforementioned systems are equipped with tables and sights. The following amount of ammunition is available:
    1. 107 mm model 1877: 44,000 units (can use ammunition from the 107 mm 10/30 gun).
    2. 152 mm 120-pood: 25,000 units
    3. 120 mm French: 74,000 units
  4. There are 148 37 mm Polish guns in stock. Within 3 days all guns will be equipped with sights and firing tables. 154,000 rounds of ammunition are available. The guns and ammunition will be issued to the Moscow militia and 22nd Rifle Corps.
Signed, Deputy Chief of the GAU, Major General of Arillery, Hohlov
November 7th, 1941"




2 comments:

  1. "2-pood guns"? The weapon I associate with that designation is the 80-pounder "unicorn" from the 1750s...

    The "unicorns" were superb pieces for the muzzle-loading smoothbore era, lightweight gun-howitzers that could lob big anti-personnel rounds out to a prodigious distance for the time, and a 245mm weapon with a barrel weight of 1.5 tonnes and the ability to lob a 40kg infantry-support round for several kilometers would fit in neatly at the top end of Soviet mortar doctrine (the role the M1943 was created for, in other words)...

    ... but they _can't_ have still been sitting in a artillery park in 1941, can they...?!

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